For some time now I have been on a mission to make friends with a cowboy, not just any cowboy, the cowboy next door. He seems like a nice man and I'm quite taken with how he sits in his backyard in old jeans and a straw cowboy hat playing country music on his guitar. He has a way of putting his bottle on the ground then swinging back in his chair as though he can see the horizon. Once I spent an entire afternoon lying down on the deck smoking cigarettes and eating mulberries as they fell off the tree just so that I could hear him play. He has many intriguing backyard habits. He likes to listen to the Dixie Chicks while he hangs out his washing. He walks clockwise around the clothesline when he talks on his mobile phone, never anti-clockwise, sometimes up and down the right hand wall but never the left. He only sings after dark.
The other weekend I saw him outside my house late at night. I was in my pyjamas and staring wild eyed at a tupperware container with a spider in it. He didn't seem to mind, I said you must come over for a cup of tea and explained that I have several teapots. The next weekend I saw him on King St, marched right up and said when are you coming over for that cup of tea. His excellent reply was that I had to send down a special invitation from my birds eye back deck to his back door.
Last night coming home he was again outside the house, this time he was standing between two parked cars in the dark night, his guitar and amp on the footpath. This time I discovered where he worked, what he did and just what he was doing standing on the road like that. My interest in this cowboy tripled in an instant, not because of his job but because of the way he described it. He suggested I use a paper aeroplane to send down that invitation to tea.
The other weekend I saw him outside my house late at night. I was in my pyjamas and staring wild eyed at a tupperware container with a spider in it. He didn't seem to mind, I said you must come over for a cup of tea and explained that I have several teapots. The next weekend I saw him on King St, marched right up and said when are you coming over for that cup of tea. His excellent reply was that I had to send down a special invitation from my birds eye back deck to his back door.
Last night coming home he was again outside the house, this time he was standing between two parked cars in the dark night, his guitar and amp on the footpath. This time I discovered where he worked, what he did and just what he was doing standing on the road like that. My interest in this cowboy tripled in an instant, not because of his job but because of the way he described it. He suggested I use a paper aeroplane to send down that invitation to tea.
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